Starrting to build my new studio,,, at last.

steptoe wrote:

So what you're saying then is that the new design is much better, do you think that the size of the live room would be more appropriate now? I also use less concrete blocks with the new design too which of course means I also save a couple of quid to spend elsewhere 8)

It's looking better (to me, anyway, but I always tend towards 'fewer, bigger rooms' and an 'acoustic problems are inversely proportional to room size' mindset), but depending on where your inner walls end up, the control room might be getting dangerously close to being twice as long as it is wide (a 1:2 ratio). It might sound counterintuitive at first, but you probably want to finalize what your construction methods and materials are going to be first (how many layers of what materials, how much air gap, how the system of ceiling joists is going to work, how much depth that is going to take up, etc.) so that you can figure out what your maximum possible ceiling height and maximum internal wall dimensions can be. Then, take your time to research 'room ratios', 'room modes', and the like, before deciding where to put the walls, based on the 'maximum possible dimensions' determined by your wall construction system and air gap. Read up as much as you can on this site, Rod's book, Wes Lachot's article(s) on his site, and elsewhere - use that information to decide how far 'in' to place your inner 'room within a room' walls, how high the inner ceiling surfaces will be (although since the existing roof starts at 7', you'll probably want to figure out how to get the ceilings 'as high as possible in the available space' while trying to avoid making the wall dimensions a simple multiple of the ceiling height), and, finally and consequently, where to put that dividing wall between 'studio' and 'mudroom with the freezer in it'. Since you're going to all the time, trouble, and considerable expense of putting up new walls, you want to make sure, while it's still 'on paper' and not 'set in stone' (literally - or at least 'set in mortar'), that you're not building four walls and a ceiling that are all multiples of the wavelength of, say, the low 'E' on a bass guitar (and think of esoteric things like: do you want your room modes to correspond to notes of the scale, or fall between the notes of the scale), before you place the first brick or cut the first piece of lumber. You can decide how geeky you want to get about room ratio stuff before you finalize your plans, and you can decide to make a conscious decision that two feet of interior length or width are more important to you than giving up interior space for an 'ideal' ratio, but once you start laying those courses of block, you'd have to tear down and all start over from scratch to change your mind. :shock: Disclaimer: Keep in mind that I'm only an aspiring amateur acoustics nerd, and not an accredited professional acoustics nerd - budgeting those quid you're saving elsewhere on a professional consult (for example, I believe Mr. Sayers offers an affordable phone consult service) for things like preferred room ratios and roof mass-loading vs. roaring jet airplanes overhead wouldn't be the worst use of some portion of your budget - and could probably actually save you "cost vs. results'" money.

Thanks for the depth of feedback there, it really helps. My original idea on the size of control room was to have it 8.5' instead of the 7.5', I never thought about the 1:2 ratio or even knew about it until you mentioned it, I guess if I go to the origanl size then that would push it further apart on the ratio. Then again this would bring the ratio closer together on the live room, win some & lose some I guess. The inner ceiling will look to start at approx 6.5' and rising to approx 8' in the center. The materials I've alerady thought about. 100mm concrete blocks for the inner walls with 4" gap filled with insulation between inner and outer garage walls. Inner ceiling will be lined with 3/4 inch ply with a layer of plasterboard added to that if needed held up with runs of 4"x2" timber supported by the walls of each room, of course I know these can't be suspended from the roof, or can they? For the floor I've decided to go with laminate flooring, not too sure as to what I'm doing with the walls yet, either leave them bare and paint over or plaster them and paint over obviously get something up to break up the room for the accoustics. I'll search this site for more info without trying to get too geeky, I'm almost feeling like a teenager again when I used to spend hours working out antenna lenths and loads etc to radio frequencies and power output, exciting stuff. Thanks again... 8)

steptoe wrote:

The inner ceiling will look to start at approx 6.5' and rising to approx 8' in the center. The materials I've alerady thought about. 100mm concrete blocks for the inner walls with 4" gap filled with insulation between inner and outer garage walls. Inner ceiling will be lined with 3/4 inch ply with a layer of plasterboard added to that if needed held up with runs of 4"x2" timber supported by the walls of each room, of course I know these can't be suspended from the roof, or can they?

Not if you can help it. Ideally you don't want the inner walls and ceiling to so much as touch the exterior walls and ceiling at all - the roof/ceiling isolation is already going to be the 'weakest link' in the design (the roof is so much less massive than the block walls). The more you can bulk up the exterior roof and inner ceiling with mass (as long as you can do so safely) the better off you'll be. It's going to be tough to get your roof-insulated air gap-ceiling to try to approach the isolation you'll get from the block-insulated air gap-block walls. Although you have a very cheap source of plywood (and trying to work it into the design to creatively get the most effective use out of readily available materials at hand is well worth considering), the plasterboard will give you much better isolation.

Just to update everyone, here are the new pictures of work done so far... You can see here where I've sealed the roof with that wonderful expanding foam, I've also filled the roof joints (overlap) with caulk, I had a buy 3 and get 1 free offer. To the other side now and you can see where I've already filled up with insulation which has now been covered with two layers of 1/2 inch chipboard. The next three pictures show the supports that I made up for the 2x2" runners which will aid in holding up the 8x4' ply, these were made from 6x4" metal sheets that I had hanging around the garage, that's why my mates call me Steptoe, always making something out of junk. On to the next stage now and filling the roof with insulation. I don't know if anyone else has ever done this but a trick I use is to lace up with string to stop the insulation from falling down whilst you're trying to put it up in the first place, this works really well. And here it is with the job completed. And here again with the ply fitted. Yet more insulation... Here is a problem I once had. A 30 foot tree fell on my garage about 5 years ago and this section of the garage has always leaked rain through, a sheet of glass and plenty of expanding foam soon fixed that though. We've had a lot of heavy rain since this was done and not a single sign of water coming through. Well here we are at the next stage, I've started laying the blocks down and it's now starting to take shape as you can see from the pictures. From the last drawing I posted for the design I've had to move the door over the right a little, from the measurements I took last night I realised that if I'd have put it where I planned to then there wouldn't be enough room above the door to lay concrete blocks and of course resulting in a weak door frame structure and possible poor sound insulation. If you look at the pictures you'll see two concrete blocks that are sticking out, this is where I am planning to put the door. In all I've removed about 60 bags of rubbish from the garage, it's amazing how much stuff you can hord away over the years without realising it's just a pile of junk. I'm off on my hols now for a week, more updates when I get back.

the foam you've used to seal is useless for sound. sorry to be the bearer of sad news

Hi John, the only real reason for using the foam is to seal the roof in from the outside. I used foam inserts before that came with the garage and you could see light through them and were sometimes drafty. This is why I've taken them out and replaced with expanding foam so that there is a better (airtight) seal. This area you see here has now been covered with insulation and 3/4" ply.

cool mate :)

John Sayers wrote:

cool mate :)

8) So I did do it right then? Just checking, I'd hate to get it wrong after all the hours of hard work, and that was just clearing the junk out of the garage LOL.

That foam is also useless for protection against water leaks. It has to be sealed from the outside of the structure to correct the leak. A high quality UV resistant caulkable sealant will do you a better job.

xSpace wrote:

That foam is also useless for protection against water leaks. It has to be sealed from the outside of the structure to correct the leak. A high quality UV resistant caulkable sealant will do you a better job.

As mentioned though, it's main purpose is to make an air tight type of seal. The leaks have already been sealed from above (forgot to mention before) with cold tar and covered to protect from UV etc. The glass sheet was added as an extra measure should the outer seal ever fail.

"I used foam inserts before that came with the garage and you could see light through them and were sometimes drafty. This is why I've taken them out and replaced with expanding foam so that there is a better (airtight) seal." Just a reply to what you are saying. If you saw light and felt air and feel confident that this is your answer, then this is your answer.

Hi everyone, I've only just realised that it's been almost 4 months since the last time I posted any pictures, rest assured though I have taken many pictures of the build process. The last time I posted I'd just started my 6 week holiday break before getting back to work, well I've been really busy on and off, any way here are the pics. In this one I've already laid down the blockwork and put in the window where the desk is going to be Here is another view from the other side. More of the internal wall of the control room Here is the door frame just been put in And here again with the blockwork done on the other side. The door I've used is a solid wooden door and has been fitted with 2 layers of chip board to aid in the sound insulation, this has been finished off with wooden strips fitted all the way around with the door in it's closed position so that it's a nice tight fit. I shall also probably put another another layer on the other side of either chip board or plaster board. Due to lack of space in here now I've had to move everything in to one side whilst the side of the control room is being worked on. The idea is that I will work on one side to get one side completed (plastering, floor, paint and fittings) and move everything over again. Now again moved to the other side now that I'm ready for laying the new concrete floor and plastering as well as fitting the internal roof. Here I have already put another layer of plasterboard onto the inner side of the external roof and fitted the 2x2 lengths of wood that will form part of the internal roof ready for the plasterboard. And here it is already fitted, of course also with 4" gap filled with insulation. Here you can see where I've started on the floor screed to level off the floor Here you can see I've fitted the laminate flooring The first wall here has just been coated with the first couple of layers of plaster. The window here has been fitted with temporary glass with a support in the middle just until the mortar had gone off, I just haven't got around to moving the support out of the way. It's been set up so that it will take a sheet of glass as mentioned in Johns window design. Here I am standing at the door of the garage looking onto the control room. Well this is it for now although as you can see there is still loads to get done. It's good knowing that when the planes come over now that the majority of the noise comes through where the room hasn't been finished, I obviously won't know how good the sound insulation is until I have the whole room finished off and I'm able to move onto the next part of the build. As for the sound getting out, I have had things turned up pretty loud and then gone outside to take a listen. Where I have the external concrete sections you have to listen pretty hard to hear anything coming through all of that concrete block, insulation and external wall. There is some noise (only a little) coming through where the existing garage doors were left in place although I did expect this to happen, I did plan to later put a thick concrete render over this although if needs be then I guess I could always build up the outside of the doors with concrete blocks but I'll see how it goes. As for the low end plane rumble that was mentioned earlier, I recently bought myself a studio condenser mic with a low end cut off switch and to be honest whilst using this feature it cuts out all of the low end ambient noise that was there before so it seems promising. I have had to work with plasterboard now throughout instead of 3/4" ply as my supply of ply has dried up. I got myself a good deal at B&Q on the insulation, they were doing BOGOF deal on it for just £18 so I bought loads of that and only last week they dropped their prices again to £6 BOGOF so I just had to go and get more of it. I'm hoping to have the control room finished off by Christmas, I have all of the materials I need for the first part of the build, all I need now is the time to get it finished...